Banking and insurance Search engine optimization (SEO) is a form of digital marketing that assists financial services firms in improving their website’s discoverability and ranking on search engines, thereby attracting a larger audience and generating more leads.
The amazing finance businesses Zebra and Homebuyer are just two of several with which Siege has collaborated. Thanks to these connections, we’ve been able to discover and perfect the kind of scalable SEO techniques that really shine in the financial markets.
Several of the difficulties that financial-sector marketers confront are discussed, along with the most effective ways that these difficulties can be addressed with the use of search engine optimization and original thought.
Troubles Any Heavily Regulated Business Faces in Marketing
The financial services sector is subject to some of the most stringent laws, making it difficult to keep up with the rapid development of the online market.
To advertise their financial products and services on Google, these businesses must follow not just federal, state, and local laws, but also Google’s own guidelines.
We can better design a successful SEO and marketing plan if we have a firm grasp of the challenges faced by those working in the financial sector.
It Is Crucial for Financial Services to Have an SEO Strategy
There are a lot of firms fighting to be at the top of search engine results pages for terms related to financial services, so you have to do something to stand out from the crowd. To do this, you need to become an SEO expert.
Effective search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial because it raises your site’s discoverability, which in turn increases your site’s traffic and your chances of making a sale.
But most businesses already have some SEO features built into their site. In order to compete with other sites, you’ll need to make yours as optimised as possible.
Complicated Subjects Need High-Quality, SEO-Driven Content
The adage “content is king” has been around for a while. In other words, content is more crucial to a website’s success than any other variable.
Many topics in finance are intricate and touch upon people’s money, making this an even more crucial skill to have.
But in such a crowded field, writing well isn’t enough to set you apart from the crowd. Write in a way that is both human-readable and search engine-friendly.
Y.M.Y.L., E.A.T. is Crucial for Financial Institutions
The financial sector is known as the Y.M.Y.L. (Your Money, Your Life) industry because of the influence that financial information has on people’s daily lives.
Since Y.M.Y.L. content has the potential to either benefit or harm its audience, it must adhere to stricter guidelines.
As a result of the high expectations placed on Y.M.Y.L content, you should prioritise developing your E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness).
Pages may not rank highly if they don’t adhere to Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, which emphasise E-A-T despite the fact that it isn’t a direct ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
There Must Be Data Collected
Customer information is a goldmine for any business. This is due to the fact that collecting client information paves the way for more informed choices and more specific advertising.
Nonetheless, many organisations in the financial sector continue to rely on antiquated technology and do not gather any internet data at all.
Your business is falling behind the times if it isn’t already gathering data from its website and mobile app users.
We suggest putting the following in place at minimum:
Google Analytics allows you to monitor user engagement, traffic sources, and more on your website or mobile app.
You may use Google Search Console to optimise your website’s visibility in search results by checking indexing, search query, and crawl error data, among other things.
If your business uses paid online marketing strategies, Google AdWords can help you develop, manage, and learn from advertising.
The Importance of Backlinks in Financial Sector SEO
In the financial services industry, a single inbound link can have a lifetime value of more than $15,000.
There are two primary causes for such high figures:
The financial sector is crucial to the economy.
There is a lot of competition in this market, therefore links are hard to come by.
In contrast to other sectors, where organic link building is commonplace, the financial sector rarely benefits from such free natural relationships.
Manual link building takes time and effort, and even if you put in a lot of time, it may only result in a small number of successful links.
Prioritize local search engine optimization
Physical locations for many financial services are still available. This is why it is important to prioritise local search engine optimization when marketing a financial service.
It is essential to create location-specific landing pages on your website that specifically target the local keywords you want to rank for.
Having a Google My Business (GMB) page for each of your brick-and-mortar stores is also crucial for local SEO. This will improve your visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for people in your area.
You are not overly concerned with technical SEO
Sites catering to the financial sector typically have tens of thousands of pages less than the average. But compared to certain e-commerce sites, which might have as many as 250 million pages, this is quite modest.
The likelihood of significant technical faults is diminished with a more compact website.
Obviously, you shouldn’t ignore technical concerns altogether, but it’s likely that you can get away with having just one person in your business with technical SEO skills keep an eye on the site and perform periodic audits.
The rewards of succeeding in online financial services marketing exceed the difficulties.
Following the aforementioned steps will help you succeed in the very competitive world of SEO and marketing for financial services.